Takes The Cake

SECOND THOUGHTS. Among nervous bridegrooms Elio Brazzale takes the cake. ''I attempted a robbery just to get arrested and thus avoid the wedding,'' he testified at his trial. The judges convicted the 20-year-old man but set him free, the news agency ANSA reported.

You've seen the commercial. A woman is on the phone. She talks about how she has been eating all of these desserts lately. Her husband overhears the conversation and ravages the refrigerator with his eyes, in search of all those cakes and pies. All he finds are neatly lined rows of yogurt. A clip from the song, "Didn't We Almost Have it All?" could have played upon the man's discovery in that Yoplait commercial. Yoplait and other national yogurt brands seemingly suggest that we can have our cake and eat it too … without caloric guilt.

I have weathered many revisions of the Sentinel during the past 38 years, but this one takes the cake. It can be classified as "government improvement," which means the results are worse afterward. The paper now looks like a cheap tabloid from NYC. It is the equivalent of taking three or four different boxes of jigsaw puzzles, dumping them out on a table, and saying, "Now read it." ROBERT L. EDNIE Casselberry

I have weathered many revisions of the Sentinel during the past 38 years, but this one takes the cake. It can be classified as "government improvement," which means the results are worse afterward. The paper now looks like a cheap tabloid from NYC. It is the equivalent of taking three or four different boxes of jigsaw puzzles, dumping them out on a table, and saying, "Now read it." ROBERT L. EDNIE Casselberry

When it comes to helping his sister celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary, Joe Ashenbrener takes the cake. He had a three-tiered wedding cake made for $47.50 to accompany him on his Nov. 28 flight to Las Vegas. At the airport, he found out the cake wouldn't fit under the seat. So he bought a second plane ticket for $109 to accommodate it. ''It got there in one piece,'' Ashenbrener said. ''That wound up being one expensive cake.''

One Orlandoan said to another, ''This sure has been a strange week.''The other said, ''Yep.''The first man said, ''I was admiring a car, and its alarm went off. Scared me to death. I swear, I didn't touch it.''The second fellow said, ''I saw a woman jogging with a headset and very dark sunglasses - at 9 p.m.''The first said, ''My boss chipped his tooth on a bagel. Must have been some bagel.''The second said, ''That takes the cake. Heck, the whole bakery.''

WE'VE HEARD about the mechanical side of medicine in the modern world, but this takes the cake. Apparently, some hospitals are beginning to use robots to handle specimens, deliver food and even help perform brain biopsies. Among the benefits - robots can't spread or catch infectious diseases. Research on robots performing brain biopsies shows they are more precise than manually controlled equipment. And ''people love them - kids walk up to them and say, 'Hi robot,' '' one Connecticut hospital official says.

WITH THE vast amount of live, daily coverage by the news media of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the government and the news media have the audacity to say they ''don't know where he is''!The United States is already the laughingstock of the world, but this latest idiocy really takes the cake. Anyone with an IQ of 10 could figure out there was something rotten in this game.But wait - could there be something deeper in this? Could it be we are trying to make our enemies die laughing?

I HAVE always thought that Charley Reese's concepts and ideas were about a century behind, but his recent rant against computers just takes the cake.Poor Charley erased his hard drive so, of course, the natural conclusion is that computers are unhelpful, boorish time-wasters that just cost you more money. Businesses and people alike have been gobbling up computers since their inception because they save time and money, period.Conceptualization, cor respondence, and composition have never been so easily produced and editable than in today's world, with the help of computers.

I HAD hoped the ``nepotism'' issue between County Manager Sue Whittle and Fire Chief Craig Haun would come to an amicable and fair conclusion.When the allegation of nepotism was made, the matter should have been settled amicably in the privacy of Whittle's office by explaining to Haun what she considered a problem, and if necessary, asking him to release his son, Matt Haun, from his volunteer firefighter duties.Or was there another motive?From what we read, Chief Haun is asking for more full-time firefighters.

As the fresh-crop walnut season crests, supermarket bins become filled with piles of satin-shelled, wrinkly brown nuts. The high-harvest flavors can be enjoyed in all sorts of ways. We're talking, after all, about a nut with a fascinating interplay of opposites: the slight bitterness of the tannins in the pellicle (or thin skin) against the sweet nut meat; the ethereal fragrance versus the earthy crunch. For creamy, sweet, fresh-nut tastes, choose walnuts in the shell and crack and eat them a few at a time with juicy apples and cheese; the accompaniments cut the pucker.

A child's birthday party used to be a simple affair with the family, a few friends and a cake. No more. Even a middle-class child's birthday party today might include ponies, a backyard petting zoo or a professional magician. Americans spend some $10 billion a year on birthdays, according to greeting-card company Hallmark. And children's birthdays are certainly a big part of that, accounting for 65 percent of all spending on birthday partyware, for example. Families are forking out money not only for their own child's birthday party but also for gifts when their child is invited to a friend's party.

WINDERMERE -- When Jean and David Wemyss got married 27 years ago, they were so busy socializing at the wedding reception that they never cut their wedding cake. On Feb. 12, during a Valentine's celebration at Windermere Union Church United Church of Christ, they finally had the chance to have their cake and eat it too. The experience was "very sweet," Jean Wemyss said. The celebration was in honor of all couples married in the church during its 90-year history as well as a celebration of marriage.

As late as the 19th century, most people in the world did not know the date of their birth and did not celebrate birthdays. The average person might have had a birthday party after about 1850. A few commercial birthday cards were sold in England at that time. A birthday party included a cake but not one with candles and decorations, such as those seen today. Popular 19th-century children's games were played at parties, including musical chairs, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, blindman's bluff or tag. Printed fabrics with a donkey and many tails to cut out were made by the 1890s.

The wedding is about to begin, and the soloist is lost in traffic. That's not all. Some wiseguy in the string quartet is joking about having a "panic attack," the groomsmen are being a tad too loud in the back of the church, and there is -- gasp! -- styrofoam peeking out from under one of the mammoth flower arrangements. But you can't tell it by looking at Heather Snively. The wedding planner -- on the verge of one of the most spectacular events of her 500-wedding career -- is poised and smiling in her size 4 St. John suit.

Emily Lewis pinned her hopes on her pies. Specifically, on her macadamia nut chocolate chunk pie, her chocolate raspberry silk and cream pie, her chocolate-coated Key lime pie, her cream pie with dulce de leche and her mango pie with a praline layer. Lewis, 51, of Mount Dora, competed -- and won prizes in two categories -- in Saturday's Great American Pie Festival amateur pie contest, sponsored by the American Pie Council. This year, she won first place in the nut category for her macadamia concoction.

Before he sentenced an admitted computer hacker Tuesday, U.S. District Judge G. Kendall Sharp told the man, ``this case takes the cake for dumbness.''Despite federal guidelines saying the hacker should receive up to six months in prison, Sharp ordered computer technician Shawn Hillis of Orlando to serve only three years' probation.``Even though it's against the law, I don't know that he had criminal intent,'' Sharp said. Hillis, 26, simply was a curious young man who had too much time on his hands, the judge said.

That takes the cake: Just when you think you've seen it all, up pops a new experience.I have been trying hard recently to take it a little easy on ''Northern friends,'' since everyone seems to think I really don't like them.I have almost stopped using the Y word, at least in my columns, and have been giving the right directions to tourists, even those with New York plates. But Thursday morning, I once again found myself fuming as I dropped by the recently burned-out Discount City Market on West Vine Street.

Things are tense in our house. Our daughter is about to turn 4, which means we have to hold a birthday party, which means my wife is, at the moment, insane. Like many moms, my wife believes that a child's birthday party requires as much planning as a lunar landing -- more, actually, because you have to hire a clown. Serious moms plan birthday parties months in advance, choosing a theme -- Bob the Builder, Disney Princesses, Snoop Doggy Dogg, etc. -- and relentlessly incorporating this theme in every element of the party.

For bakers, the signs of the season aren't found in crowded mall parking lots or in the glow of ornamental lights. The holidays are signaled by the scents of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger wafting from the oven. "My first cookie memory is from the age of 4," says Dede Wilson, author of A Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies (Harvard Common Press, $14.95). Gingerbread cutout cookies prepared with her mother and aunt were in the oven and whimsical decorations were on her mind back then.